


as bronze may be much beautified

by couldaughter



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash, everyone in this is awesome, no exceptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-19 13:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldaughter/pseuds/couldaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mallory gets kidnapped on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into English available: [青铜益美](https://archiveofourown.org/works/652891) by [illyasuiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyasuiel/pseuds/illyasuiel)



> This is an entirely gratuitous, self indulgent fic about how awesome every Skyfall character is. Set post-Skyfall, so spoilers abound! There is also a disappointing lack of Tanner, for which I apologise profusely.  
> now with [chinese translation](http://archiveofourown.org/works/652891) by the lovely illyasuiel!

Mallory is kidnapped on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, from his favourite restaurant by a secretary MI6 didn’t screen quite thoroughly enough. This is why Bond hates Tuesdays.

There’s always some bloody contrivance to contend with, and his weekend missions are long over by then – he is always, inevitably, roped in to assist.

In this case, however, he’s glad (in some sense of the word) to lend a hand. Loath as Bond is to admit it, he’s formed a grudging respect for M’s replacement, ever since the gunfight at the inquiry (If Bond’s being honest with himself, which he never is, it’d been forming a bit longer than that.)

He does not acknowledge the hot twist of panic in his chest (oh god not again not again.)

-

Mallory gets kidnapped on a grey Tuesday afternoon, and Q can’t find him. His tracking device won’t register on the surveillance grid, and this is not in any way possible, not at all. Q knows, he’d made absolutely sure, that Mallory was practically super glued to the damn thing, and now he can’t locate it – it's either broken or inside a lead box, and Q resolutely does not think about what that might mean (He’d known the old M for less than half a year, and her death is still fresh in everyone’s mind.)

Q is not used to his inventions failing him. The sensation is decidedly unpleasant.

-

Mallory is kidnapped on Tuesday, Eve’s day off, and she can’t shake the feeling that it’s all her fault.

Guilt is not a pleasant emotion, and she’s had enough of it in the past six months for a lifetime, but this time she’s more equipped to deal with it. When she’d left field work behind her the past month, she’d hoped she’d never to have to do this again.

She gets her guns out of their carefully hidden compartment in the back of her wardrobe.

Being the best sniper in the country isn’t something you can just give up.

-

Mallory is kidnapped on a miserable Tuesday afternoon.

He is, understandably, annoyed when he eventually wakes up. He’d really liked that restaurant, and now the security team were never going to let him go there again. He does not, in any way, think he is in Ireland. Not for a second.

He’s angry, next. At the idiots who thought they could get away with kidnapping the head of MI6, at himself for letting the secretary dupe him into leaving his table – it curls in his stomach, hot and painful, and he waits.

The restraints can stay, for now. Mallory has more important things on his mind.

-

Q branch has spent the last two hours trying to track the captor’s transport back through the city.

The car they’d used initially had been easily traced back as far as Whitehall, but after that the rush hour had set in and had been lost soon enough.

It was… frustrating, to say the least. They knew, without a doubt, that Mallory was still in London. Unfortunately, ‘London’ covered an area larger than some counties, and the rescue effort had faltered already.

Q takes another sip of coffee, and grimaces. He may not have been willing to take the time to make good coffee, but that doesn’t mean he has to enjoy it. He sighs, and keeps looking.

-

Sometimes, James Bond wishes he’d never become an agent for MI6. Today is not one of those days.

He knows, soon enough, that they’ll find Mallory. What he plans to do is find him alive.

Q finds him when he’s trying to make as surreptitious an exit as is possible when you’re likely the most well known 00 agent in MI6, and glares at him.

“Where do you think you’re going, Bond?” he said, raising an accusatory eyebrow.

Bond considered his answer for a moment. “Rescuing. Now, do you want to join in, or do you need permission from your mumsy first?”

“I’m sure she’ll live without knowing where I am for a few hours.” Q says, seeming to enjoy the lighter mood for a few seconds. “Oh, and Eve’s coming with us.” He said this almost forcefully, as if daring Bond to disagree.

“Fine.” 007 knew Eve was a capable field agent. He also knew, on a less professional level, that she could kick like a mule and drink most men under the table. “Tell her we’re leaving in ten minutes.”

-

Mallory looks up when the door to the small, dark room opens. It slams shut behind the woman, a subtle click indicating that it was impassable, for now.

“So, Mr Mallory,” she says, with a slight accent Mallory couldn’t place, ‘I trust you’ve found your accommodation as unacceptable as possible.’

He grins. “Oh, I’m afraid it was much better than some of the hotels I’ve had to stay in. Practically the Ritz in comparison.”

He knows the punch is coming. Try as he might, he can’t contain the flinch before it connects.

-

The ride to wherever Bond is taking them is tense. No one speaks until, twenty minutes in; Q changes the radio to some station neither Eve nor Bond have heard of.  
Bond says, calmly ‘The radio is off limits,’ and changes the station back to classic rock. Eve’s not surprised in the least, and actually a little thankful. Q’s music choices are a little too eclectic for her tastes.

“So, where are we actually going?” She asks, a touch of sarcasm sliding into her voice. She knows, objectively, that he couldn’t have told them in MI6 itself – there are listening devices everywhere, and since the whole ‘Rescue Mallory’ plan is definitely in breach of about seven separate protocols they are almost certainly getting months worth of disciplinary action for it.

But somehow, she can’t care less. Mallory is… kinder than she’d thought, and even as his secretary he’s always willing to discuss MI6’s missions with her, and occasionally trade office gossip.

“A safer place, to plan. Getting Mallory from wherever he is, that’s going to be a logistical nightmare if we’re not careful.” Bond replies eventually, and then focuses back on the road. He’s a lot less talkative than usual, and considering how little he talks even then, this is a cause for concern. Clearly, Bond’s more worried than he’s letting on.

Eve decides to drop it, for now. She’s almost sure he’s not driving them to their deaths, at least not intentionally.

-

It’s been three hours, by Mallory’s internal clock. He thinks it’s still accurate, although the lack of windows means he’s not sure which three hours of the day, and how long it’s been since he went missing.

He is, in spite of himself, fairly confident that if he waits long enough, a rescue team will arrive. But, as tempting as that option might be, Mallory also really, really hates the powerlessness that comes with captivity. Ireland, in many ways, was the making of him. He doesn’t want to be remade; he’s scared of what he might turn out to be like, so soon after the Skyfall… incident.

Silva, and his creation, had shaken him. Not that he’d admit it to anyone, of course. Any sign of weakness in a leader, and an organisation can sink in minutes.  
The woman has appeared three times now, almost on the dot of each hour, and Mallory still isn’t sure what they need him for. He assumes they’re planning on either killing him, or using him as leverage against the government.

He’s glad she hasn’t checked his restraints in a while. His wrists are bloody, but the knots are looser now. He ignores the pain radiating from what he assumes is a broken rib.

These bastards aren’t going to know what hit them, he thinks, and keeps working at the ropes tying his hands.

-

Bond finally turns the car into a nondescript driveway after an hour of near silent travelling.

Q and Eve get out behind him, looking around with interest.

“No need to gawp, children.” Bond says, smirking. “It’s nothing special, really.” He pulls up a garage door, to reveal what looks like a relic from the 1980s – bulky computers on shaky wooden desks, what looks like a gun cabinet in the back corner.

“Not very impressive, is it?” Q knows this can’t be all there is – Bond is old fashioned, but he does know what equipment Q can and can’t use for this particular endeavour.

Bond smiles more widely, then. “Oh, believe me, Q, there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

Q represses the urge to snort at that.

“You do realise we have a job to do here, right?” Eve has wandered into the garage and is looking around, careful not to get any accumulated dust and spider webs on her jacket.

Bond doesn’t reply.

-

The panic has settled in his chest, by now, and they are not getting there quickly enough.

Bond has been in this business for three times as long as Q and Moneypenny put together, and he’s not sure how to find Mallory, and that thought (more than anything else that’s happened) scares him.

Walking past Q into the small room, he pulls an almost concealed lever in the wall. It’s an old system, certainly, but he’d kept it updated as much as possible.

Q is close enough to gawping at the newly revealed technology to make James smile.

-

It’s been five hours since he woke, and the rope around Mallory’s wrists is loose enough to escape. He’s going to wait a while though. Mallory is many things, but merciful is not one of them.

The woman (Sylvia, and the irony is bitter on his tongue) comes again soon afterwards.

“Are you willing to talk?” she says, the strange accent still twisting her speech.

Mallory smiles at her, as politely as he would to the PM. “Of course not, Sylvia. Why on Earth would I do that?”

He tastes blood, savours it for a moment, and then brings his hands around.

-

It’s been an hour since they arrived at Bond’s hideaway, and Q has made a breakthrough.

His exhaled ‘Yes,’ catches the attention of Eve, who is sat next to him, and Bond, who is across the room and clearly has better hearing than his MI6 testing would have indicated.

“What is it?” they ask almost simultaneously. Q’s a little surprised at that – he knows Eve is concerned for a friend more than anything else, but he’d thought Bond might be a little more reserved.

Then again, today’s been stressful for everyone involved.

“I’ve managed to get the tracking signal back online – whoever’s taken Mallory thought smashing it would actually stop the signal permanently.’ Thankfully, Q had designed them with destruction in mind – the signal was emitted from a component about the size of a fingernail. The rest of it was just packaging, really. “They’re in a warehouse in the dockyards, about an hour from here. We should probably get going.”

Bond’s already out the door before he finishes the sentence.

-

Eve nominates herself to drive, which in reality means she recognises that Bond’s hands are shaking and Q doesn’t have a driving license. Adding a minor conviction to today’s technically illegal activities would not improve her mood.

Her fingers are tight on the steering wheel, and every turn onto yet another nondescript side road is a tad sharper than it needs to be. She doesn’t want to lose her boss, not with another death (or at least, near death) haunting her conscience.

She makes sure to keep at the maximum legal limit, just in case.

-

They reach the warehouse in well under an hour. Bond practically leaps out of the car, much as he hates to show any sign of panic. That, and the emotions that come with it, are signs of weakness in a leader, and he doesn’t need to appear any less trustworthy than he already does.

On the other hand, he doesn’t have any reason to seem above that, today. As strange as it is to admit, he trusts Q and Eve (and Mallory, of course), and he thinks they’ll keep it quiet, whatever happens.

When he reaches the door, he kicks it in without hesitation. There’s some hired muscle blocking his path.  
He kicks the nearest one in the stomach and smiles as he hears Eve taking out the others.

After making sure the thug is unconscious, Bond turns around to check on his accomplice’s progress. To his surprise, Q is standing over one thug with a gun pointed at his head. He’d thought Q branch didn’t have to go through the weapons training, but apparently Q was an exception to that rule.

Eve’s been done with her target for just as long as Bond. He’s proud of both of them.

-

Mallory hears the commotion outside the door just as he finishes tying Sylvia to the chair. It’s extremely satisfying, if nothing else. He debates going to meet his rescuers before they reach him, but he doesn’t really want to risk getting shot, and he’s fairly certain he’s got at least one cracked rib.

Passing out in front of Bond would be embarrassing enough, but in front of the at least two other people he’s brought with him would be excruciating.  
He picks up the knife the woman had dropped on the floor in surprise, careful not to strain his already aching ribs, and leans against the wall. There’s no point in wasting energy on standing properly when no one’s around.

The door opens slowly, to reveal Bond, accompanied by Q and Moneypenny, which counts as a welcome surprise. Honestly, Mallory is shocked Bond agreed to having backup with his record of heinous disregard for his own safety.

“Took you long enough,” says Mallory with a thin smile. He doesn’t move away from the wall.

Bond looks a steady as ever on the surface, but on a second glance Mallory can see lines drawn taught around his eyes with worry. “We were a little delayed, sir. Your tracking device was… difficult to locate.” Bond casts an almost thankful look back at Q. “Fortunately, our dear Quartermaster found it eventually. Although it would seem he didn’t need to after all.”

“Any and all help is always appreciated, 007,” Mallory grins, tasting blood on his tongue. “Besides, I’m fairly certain I couldn’t have taken on the guards outside as effectively as you all did.” He doesn’t mention the pain in his ribs, or his arms, but he’s fairly certain all three of them notice the way he’s holding himself, even apart from the way he’s slumped against the wall.

Eve interjects, then. “It’s good to see you again sir, but I do think we should leave as soon as possible. Get you some medical attention, at least.” She looks pointedly at him, and Mallory can’t find it within himself to protest when she takes his arm.

-

The car ride back to MI6 is slightly less silent than the one that morning.

But only slightly.

Mallory changes the radio, once, and Q is shocked when 007 doesn’t turn it back automatically.

Then again, maybe he’s not. There’s certainly been enough worry hidden in Bond’s face all day to make him wonder about his exact attachment to their new head of office.

Deciding to leave that thought process for another, less stressful day, Q returns to staring out of the window for the remainder of the car journey.

He also purposefully ignores the meaningful looks Eve is shooting at Bond. He really doesn’t have the energy for other peoples’ relationship issues.

-

The car slides into Mallory’s assigned parking space at a little after four o’clock in the morning. It’s been 8 hours since he was declared missing.

There is something of a commotion when the four of them walk into the main foyer of the building, especially since Eve, Q and Bond are essentially supporting M to keep him from collapsing where he stands. Or, perhaps more accurately, Bond is supporting Mallory while the others hover concernedly.

“Don’t ask.” Says Bond, tersely. “We’re going to bring him down to medical, because he won’t do it if we leave him in the office, and then you can ask anything you want.”

For a moment, Mallory looks as if he wants to protest, but instead he just nods tiredly. “I don’t think I have much of a say in this one.”

Tanner looks on in mild astonishment as the group escorts Mallory to the stairs.


	2. an epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the epilogue. This descended into the worst kind of schmoop imaginable, for which I can only apologise.
> 
> Thanks to everyone on tumblr for putting up with my neverending complaining about this chapter - it was a little like drawing blood from a stone for a few days :)

The next morning Mallory is besieged with visitors. He’d been forced to stay in the infirmary overnight for observation – the doctor was particularly worried about the possibility of lung damage from the three cracked ribs – and is now bored almost beyond belief.

After the first ten anxious higher ups visit, he misses the boredom.

Really, how many times is he going to have to go through the awkward but entirely well intentioned well wishes? He just wants to get this ridiculous business over with and get back to work.

After he nearly snaps at the prime minister (‘Are you _sure_ you’re all right?’), Mallory decides it might be time to try to sleep again just to avoid them.

Thankfully, it’s easy enough to give into the exhaustion that’s been nagging at him since he arrived and slip into the quiet comfort of sleep.

-

Bond is definitely not fretting, no matter what the looks Eve’s been sending him for the past hour might indicate. He’s just concerned. It’s a completely professional thing to be, really.

He might even convince himself of that, someday.

This is why he, and Eve, and Q, are currently sat in the waiting area outside the infirmary for visiting hours to officially start. Normally James is not one to follow such banal things as ‘official’ opening times, but he’s not in any mood for a bollocking from the head medic, who is a battleaxe of the worst kind, or Mallory, who is- well, Mallory, and James is not ready to cross that minefield quite yet.

There’s been a steady stream of officials of various kinds going in and out of the infirmary all morning, which is both a severe breach of protocol (which Bond doesn’t care all that much about) and _bloody annoying_.

He’s just about ready to ignore the slightly threatening orderly and go in anyway (and from the looks on their faces, so are Q and Moneypenny) when the clock strikes 9am and visiting hours, finally, begin.

-

Q has been bouncing his foot against the cold plastic floor in an uneasy rhythm for far too long. He hates waiting, with a passion he usually reserves for circuitry, and this particular wait is doubly unbearable for 007’s presence.

James Bond, for all he thinks he’s a bastion of calm coolness, is ridiculously impatient when he can’t pass the time by punching people. It probably doesn’t help, at least in Q’s inestimable opinion, that Bond’s a little too attached to Mallory for his own good.

He looks sideways at Eve, who is entirely too interested in the car magazine she’d picked up to pass the past half an hour. It doesn’t help that she’s been rereading the same page over for almost the entire time.

He sighs again, glancing at the door for the twentieth time in ten minutes, and then at the clock. The minute hand wavers at the 59 mark, mocking him. One of these days, Q is going to invent a clock that actually speeds up time.

It ticks over, finally, and he’s fairly certain that, if it weren’t scientifically impossible, Bond would have broken the sound barrier going in.

-

Mallory appears to be sound asleep when Bond goes in at a _completely reasonable_ pace. This, of course, leads Bond to be even more cautious than usual: generally speaking, Mallory is very good at seeming to be things. Especially asleep.

The decision on whether to wake Mallory or awkwardly stand at the side of the bed is answered when Mallory sighs and says “Honestly, 007, your bedside manner leaves much to be desired.” His eyes are still closed.

Bond can feel a smile tugging at his lips. “Frankly, sir, I think you might be the issue here. Stress is not conducive to a positive work relationship.”

“Oh, is _that_ what it is? Why didn’t you just say so, Bond?” Mallory does smile, then. He’s never been as good as Bond is at concealing his emotions, which is really to his detriment as an intelligence boss. Bond can’t bring himself to care.

Bond is still debating the relative insanity of kissing Mallory in public, even in spite of precedent, when Q and Eve barge in and the point is moot.

He still makes sure to send a glare their way when neither of them is paying attention. It’s the principle of the thing.

-

It is something of a surprise to wake up on hearing someone entering the room. It’s much less of a surprise that it’s Bond. He’s always been one to worry unnecessarily.

Mallory smiles at the other man’s fumbled attempt at wit. It’s almost sweet, as much as a trained killing machine can be thought of as ‘cute’.

Q and Moneypenny are very reserved about the whole event, which is perhaps for the best. Mallory would really prefer it if everyone just forgot about it, to be honest.  
This is why he is rather too happy to see the two well wishers out. Concern is, frankly, unprofessional.

Admittedly, so is what he’s about to say, but then things between him and Bond haven’t been professional in… a while, to say the least.

“Go home, James. I’m not going to die in the next 10 hours, excepting extreme circumstances, and you haven’t slept in two days.” Honestly, it’s almost like Bond wants to pass out in the middle of MI6 headquarters. Mallory wouldn’t put that past him, all things considered.

Bond doesn’t look convinced.

“I really don’t understand what your issue is with this, Bond, it’s not like I’m asking anything unreasonable.” Mallory looks at him pointedly. “Whatever happens, I’ll be out of this damned place by this evening no matter what the PM says, so it’s unlikely you’ll have to survive without me for more than a few hours.”

Bond kissing him is a little unexpected, but Mallory indulges him for a few seconds. It’s an unusual feeling, being the object of concern – he’s not sure how he’d feel about it from anyone else, though. Bond has turned out to be an exception in many ways.

“Go _home_ , Bond.” He smiles fondly as, for once, Bond actually follows orders and leaves.


End file.
